In Fondi, the young professor found me. He had been looking for me for some time – and he found me, for he was walking toward the Jewish world.
For this very reason, he was filled with satisfaction and spoke to me of his desire to know Judaism in order to find G-d, perhaps to glimpse a path and overcome evil (or Evil, as he is more accustomed to).
But, perchance – I asked him –, has it ever occurred to you that HaShem (or G-d, if you prefer) does not want to (and cannot) be found? By any chance, have you ever thought about the possibility that Judaism is not a path, nor does it give you any certainty about a world that will never be reached?
Have you also considered that in Jewish formation there is no concern whatsoever with evil or good (or Evil and Good, if you prefer), and that there is no theology to be grasped? Have you thought about that?
Well then, in Judaism we do not study, we do not seek, and we do not sell HaShem.
Judaism does not aim for an encounter with Him (or of Him). We cannot say anything about Evil or Good, since they are Persian, Greek, medieval fantasies, aggravated by African cults. Instead, we concern ourselves only with good or bad behaviors, with good or bad choices. In Judaism, we do not project ourselves into a future world; and, if it is to be future (if it exists at all), it will come naturally, independent, and within whatever HaShem may intend.
There are no magics, there are no formulas, nor prayers that can modify the times, the cycles, and the Will of the Eternal!
And so, without a future or surprises, we learn to look at our hands, our feet, our eyes, our ears, our body, our feelings, our knowledge, and everything that comes to us for realization. We teach our children that a cliff is indeed a cliff (and not a concept). We teach that a garden is indeed a garden (and not a fantasy).
And we make it clear that, upon our table, a bread must be just, made by just hands and acquired with just resources, because, when we pronounce some word (among ourselves), we do not do it to thank (for children do not thank their parents), but, at least, we pronounce them to bless HaShem, in order to be sure that that bread has no other origin but that of justice, goodness, and lightness…
We also teach that an enemy is indeed an enemy (an enemy always!). And the best for us is that the enemy be well, tranquil, occupied (very occupied), and live far from our houses, very far indeed! But the enemy is not “something” fallen from the “sky”, a supernatural being, a rebel in Bereshit, or a spiritual entity with sexual desires. The enemy has hands and feet, has hunger and thirst, has vision and smell, just like us. But he, the enemy, has no just table nor just bread; he has no limits, nor does he know principles.
Unlike us, when he is hungry, he eats without measure or criteria. Therefore he stretches out his hands and advances his feet, caring for neither this nor that. And when he sees or perceives something, the enemy wants it for himself, in an uncontrollable mimetic desire—snatching, destructive, and fatal. For this reason, we always wish that our enemies have everything, occupy themselves greatly, and remain very tired, so that they forget about us, our gates, our goods, our children, and our lives.
But we, who know nothing of their gates, their goods, and their children, nevertheless do not forget them; we never forget that they are enemies and we want them to be well, and far from us.
In Judaism we do not discuss theological concepts, we do not defend religious dogmas, we do not seek believers or infidels, we do not take anyone to the Synagogue, we do not form missionaries. We neither despise nor approve of another’s religion, because Judaism is our best silence—a singular and respectful silence. And so, we are never in the squares or on the street corners (nor on religious stages). The religious stage is not, in fact, for Jews… On the contrary, we are involved with our sweat, with our books, with our Sefirôt.
But we do not study the Eternal, and we do not even pronounce His Name! We ask nothing of Him, but, with a deep and respectful feeling of gratitude and reverence, we bless His Name every morning and every afternoon, and at nightfall, we look at our children, covering them tenderly and launching them into the Presence of HaShem…
We love the Festivals; we count on our fingers the days remaining until the next Festival and what we must do to make them joyful, wonderful, and human. Our Festivals do not project anything magical toward the future, nor should they be read as prophecies. Our Festivals are merely Festivals of memory, with which we tell our history (to our children).
Yes, my dear friend, with them we tell our own history; for this reason, for millennia, we have made the same bread of bitterness and captivity, and we do not eat, during that period, any leaven, so that we do not forget that leaving slavery is a hurried act, an act that permits neither comfort nor reflection.
We have no shame in saying, during our Festivals, that we were slaves! We celebrate our harvests, our moment of integral constitution at Sinai, and we celebrate our new periods of work, much work, remembering our bad actions, our bad behaviors in a complete cycle, the privations, the huts (in which we lived). Furthermore, we remember the moments when our enemies destroyed our palaces, our altars, and how, strengthened in our principles, we rid ourselves of them, fighting, fighting hard, with real swords, forks, and stones.
We remember our state in a strange land and the governments – Persian, Catholic, or Nazi – that tried to erase us from history, and how people of our people, of flesh and bone (men and women), kept their purposes clear, their love unshakable, and, with wisdom, used everything they had learned at home with their parents and siblings to decide on something, to do something, and to define that we do not have to disappear from the earth.
Our days are not occupied, integrally and insanely, with a continuous hustle and bustle.
No! We do stop; there is a day, deliciously special, when we stop to eat a braided bread, made by an amiable woman who is satisfied with HaShem.
We stop to drink wine, to eat fruit, sweets, and honey, to sing with our sons and daughters and, hand in hand, to dance, nudging each one of them, tickling them, laughing out loud, and smelling their hair. But we do not give them any religious sermon on this day!
We also stop, on this day, to meet with other people whom we love, our friends who, like us, ate of their braided bread, made by their amiable women who are satisfied with HaShem, and drank of their wine and ate fruit, sweets, and honey, who sang with their sons and daughters and, hand in hand, danced with them, and nudged them, and tickled them, and laughed out loud, and smelled their hair without, however, giving any religious sermon.
For this very reason, when more friendly people are together, everyone knows what braided bread, wine, sweets, honey, sons, daughters, amiable women satisfied with HaShem, laughs, and outbursts of laughter mean. And the motives, all the motives, for not wanting to work on this day. When we are together, we despise religious speeches and sermons, because our children, women, and friends are worth more than religious speeches or endless prayers.
However, when one of our friends works on this day and we cannot see him in our gatherings, this neither bothers nor charms us.
In fact, we do not send any spy to his house, no missionary, and much less a prophet! We do not investigate our brother or our sister, because, in Judaism, each one is responsible for themselves and, just like the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, each one is worth by themselves, has their own weight and their own measure (which no one seeks to know, for it is the indecipherable measure of each individual).
The responsibility in us reaches levels of greatness and depth, of weight and substance, but it is individual, singular, and untransferable. From an early age we are instructed in good behavior, we are taught by the example of our fathers and our mothers (yes, in Judaism we know well the words father and mother!).
We learn to do, to concretize, to transform a brick into a castle, a page into a library, and, thus, we are continuously exercised in deepening, in studying, and in the search for knowledge. We frequent second-hand bookstores more than restaurants…
We thus develop, naturally, respect for those who, eventually, may be our masters, our professors. However, they are not our spiritual guides, they are not our pastors, nor do they lead us anywhere.
They are masters who teach us the Torah and the Talmud, and who encourage us to teach the Torah and the Talmud, transforming us into masters and professors who teach the Torah and the Talmud… They, the masters, are not our owners nor the owners of our houses, because what they hold in their hands and bequeath to us is so precious, grand, and essential that, because of that—exactly because of that—we learn that our house is our garden, our refuge, and a projection of ourselves.
We learn that our houses reflect our love for Jerusalem.
Ah, Jerusalem… Jerusalem is our center. And from there, we learn to look at the world, the universe, the kosmos…
There, especially there, we find ourselves again as a people, as human beings who overcame death, the gas chambers, and all kinds of malice, who transcended the pains and were reborn! The city of Melech David and Melech Sh’lomo—Poetry and Wisdom hand in hand!
No, no, my dear friend, Judaism is not solitude. We are warmly sociable. Judaism is a fulfilling silence, a fire that burns without speech, an energy that makes and remakes our soul.
If you want to walk with us, you may come. Yes, you may come (why not?).
But do not intend to go out into the world trying to fix it with Judaism, nor to turn against your old peers, incriminating them, defeating them, and causing them displeasure. Do not do that!
If you want, come. But if you come and live as a Jew, you will not make yourself better than your old companions, nor will you be able to tell them anything.
You will only point to yourself (only to yourself!) a unique, proper behavior, especially if you perceive that our G-d is your G-d and that our People is your People; and, thus, you will not be able to do – nor permit to be done to others – what seems hateful, unjust, and indecent to yourself.
© Pietro Nardella-Dellova.
MOVEMENT TOWARD JUDAISM
in A Morte do Poeta e Outros Monólogos.
São Paulo: Editora Scortecci, 2009, p. 150.